The MANCOLD

In the interest of marital harmony, let me be clear right from the start: My husband Glenn is no girly-man. During the past few years, he has sustained so many injuries, through accidents that defy the imagination and boggle the mind, that he can no longer straighten half of his fingers and a chiropractor took one look at him and suggested he come in for weekly treatments lasting into infinity.

Take the time we were renovating a bathroom. At 3 a.m., a heavy rain began to fall and Glenn decided to make sure our bathroom was safe from leaks. Seconds later, I heard a thunderous noise and a howl reminiscent of a wolf baying at a full moon. Glenn had forgotten the bathroom’s floorboards had been removed, and he somehow crashed through the plaster ceiling of the room below. He hung from a joist, his head in one level of the house and his legs in another, swaying like a piñata only a malicious kid would want at their birthday party.

A week or so later, Glenn went to get something out of our minivan and somehow the door swung shut while his hand was resting on the door jam – and this is the part I still can’t quite get my mind around – the van’s door latched into place with Glenn’s hand trapped inside.  Two fingers were sacrificed that day, and Glenn still winces when someone heartily shakes his hand. Which, luckily, never happens in the Washington workplace.

But there is one thing that can fell my husband, who valiantly managed to bounce back from the time I dropped a 15-pound baby on his nose in the middle of the night. (In my defense, I was carrying the baby to our bed and stumbled on a throw rug, and there was really no other safe place for me to toss the baby. Glenn’s nose now sports a flat spot on its bridge, but in all honestly, it does add character).

The only thing that can drop my husband in his tracks is an ailment that no man is strong enough to conquer. It deserves such fear and respect that it must be referred to in a deep, foreboding, radio-announcer voice: THE MANCOLD.

The Mancold is a completely different entity than a simple woman’s cold, much in the way that Glenn and a professional hand model are different creatures. When The Mancold strikes, Glenn raises a tissue to his dented nose with his claw-like fingers, wondering aloud if anyone has ever suffered so greatly.

But he bravely refuses to rest. Glenn prefers to haul himself out of bed and mow the lawn or limp into the office, moaning every few seconds about his proximity to death. (Tombstone headline: Noble Man Succumbs to Worst Cold Ever; Wife Regrets Suggesting He Suck it Up). 

Whether or not I have a cold too is a moot point. Just as men can’t fully understand the experience of childbirth (puffing out your cheeks and “co-breathing” doesn’t cut it, guys), women will never know the depths of misery that accompany The Mancold.

I was first indoctrinated into the power of The Mancold as a young child, since like Glenn, my father is a maestro of The Mancold. Just as Kevin Bacon can be connected to any other actor in six degrees, so too can my father can be connected to any cold.  If one of my sons sniffles (say Jack, otherwise known as the nose-breaker) and if a parent passes Jack in the halls of his school, then goes directly to Whole Foods and uses a shopping cart that my father will end up gripping two days later, my father will immediately collapse onto the couch, moaning for Jesus’ mercy and a clicker, though not necessarily in that order.

The reach of the Mancold is far and wide, and its power should never be underestimated. There’s even a brilliant video on YouTube  showing a British guy afflicted with The Mancold, who naturally calls paramedics when his wife doesn’t answer his feeble calls from the couch. The (male) paramedics rush in and provide the guy with a bell, instructing his wife to rub his head and call him a “poor little bunny” every time he gathers the feeble strength to ring the bell.

Gotta run – I just heard something. It was either a bell ringing, or the sound of Glenn’s last remaining finger being crunched by the ceiling fan as he reached up to pull his shirt on over his head.